Grape Output Under Threat From Unseasonal Rains

Maharashtra, which accounts for around 70 per cent of the total grapes output in the country, is likely to face the prospects of a lower crop for harvesting in early 1998. Farmers fear that the untimely rains last week could hit their crop with diseases.

"The unseasonal rains could be catastrophic for the major grape growing districts of Maharashtra as deadly diseases like downy and bhuri could trigger an epidemic," officials of the All India Grape Growers' Federation told Business Standard.

The federation had called for an emergency meeting of grape growing farmers' representatives of various districts of the state in the city to assess the extent of damage caused by the untimely rains. The federation officials said it was too early to predict the extent of damage at the moment.

However, the meeting is expected to piece together the data from various districts and would be able to gauge the extent of the damage caused by the rains. Nashik, which accounts for one-third of the grapes output in the state, Solapur, Latur and Sangli had unseasonal rains last week. However, officials say that Sangli may benefit from the untimely rains as it was facing drought-like conditions. During the last grape growing season, the untimely rains in Ahmednagar district had caused extensive damage to the crop resulting in a production loss of over Rs five crore, officials said. With the untimely rains having spread to several major grape growing districts during the current season, damage to the crop could be far more severe.

Mahagrapes, an export firm promoted by 18 grape growers' cooperative societies, has expressed fear that the untimely rains could affect exports. "The untimely rains could result in early harvesting of grapes, and deny us the lucrative European market where Indian grapes command a premium between March 15 to 30," a Mahagrapes official said. Prior to March 15, grapes from Chile and South Africa flood the European markets, and it would be difficult for the farmers to compete on the price front, he said.

In 196-97, Maharashtra produced 4.91 lakh tonne of grapes from 54,588 acres of land. Out of this, over 15,000 tonne of grapes were exported, mainly to European countries.